5% commission for what?  Now I can do my own MLS listing for $800 which will generate lots of buyers…I can make a sign and do the paperwork…the only leveragable thing left for the agent / broker value proposition is community information and risk management between buyers and sellers that don’t know each other.

Oh no…its Zillow.com + social networking!!

If you are buying / selling real estate…u have to check out Zillow.com. It is THE informational future of real estate. Although only available in US right now….there are +18,000,000 listings with a set of research tools like nothing your agent / broker has even seen:

Zillow has interactive / zoomable maps showing information on every home in the USA including:

- Exact location
- Estimated Value of that house and all the houses in the area
- 3/ 5/ 10 year pricing trends for area  (total and $ / sf2)
- Community stats like age / families with children
- Some pictures

Right now Zillow still pushes “leads” over to the brokers (using more pictures and content to get buyer to follow link to broker site). With Zillow in the mix…I would propose the only thing missing is some social networking to build trust between buyers and sellers…some intermediary for the transaction…hmmm…where could we find an entity that could do that…

Try Zillow.com…what do you think?